Monday, February 1, 2010

Red Velvet Valentine's Macarons

Oh macaron, how I love thee. Your crunchy outer shell with your chewy insides. The way you melt in the mouth and taste so dreamy with your various fillings. How cute you look in every color of the rainbow. ♥ swoon ♥

Will you be my valentine?

These macarons make me smile. Inspired by a seasonal offering from Williams-Sonoma, they were an experiment of mine to attempt a red velvet macaron flavor and I am more than pleased with the result. Red velvet is very much an elusive flavor to describe. Technically, it's a buttermilk cake with a hint of cocoa and of course, the excessive red food coloring. The frosting also adds to the red velvet experience and can range anywhere from cream cheese frosting to vanilla sour cream or even a more modern twist - cinnamon buttercream.

The latter is what I chose for these macarons, as I have used it previously on a red velvet cake for my mom's birthday that was met with rave reviews. The recipe comes from Baked, a well known bakery in Brooklyn that I had the pleasure of visiting last September. I tried a few of their cupcakes, including a red velvet, and while the cake was a bit on the dry side (perhaps it was due to my late in the day visit?) the frosting, oh the frosting! Every single one of them was divine. Not overly sweet at all and deliciously creamy. I'm usually the one to scrape off most frosting on baked goods piled high (as is usually the case with cupcakes) but theirs was so good I didn't dare. While a cinnamon buttercream may not be traditional for red velvet, I think it is an excellent modern twist on an old classic that has seen a resurgence.

To make a macaron red velvet, I simply modified a recipe I'd used before (employing the Italian meringue method) by adding a bit of cocoa powder. I was hoping to add a hint of cocoa flavor to the shells without turning them brown or chocolate flavored, however, there wasn't any hint of cocoa to be found. Had I added more I don't think the food coloring would have covered up the brown tint, though I may experiment more in the future with this.

All in all, I am still very pleased with the final result. I love the cinnamon buttercream with these but would think that a cream cheese frosting would go just as well with them.

**EDIT: I found a great new blog dedicated to these lovely little sweet treats called Mactweets and will be entering these in their Mac-a-Valentine round up. Check out!

A little note on this recipe - it makes A LOT. I easily filled 3 sheet pans worth. Also, please do yourself a favor and use two pastry bags for the batter. I made the mistake of only using one; I thought the 16-inch size I had would suffice but I ended up overflowing some batter while filling the pastry bag and then also had batter oozing out of the top and all over my hands. Lesson learned!

Sift together the almond flour and confectioner's sugar. Mix in the egg whites to create the "mass" (mixture will be very thick). Add in your desired amount of red food coloring and mix well. Note: I didn't measure the amount I used, I just kept adding until I had a bright red color, keeping in mind that the color will be diffused a bit when the Italian meringue is added.

Once the sugar/water mixture reaches 245F, remove from the stove and let bubbles settle. Turn your mixer to low-medium speed and slowly pour in your sugar syrup mixture while continuing to beat the whites. Beat until you get soft peaks that gently food over when you turn the whisk upside down.

Preheat your oven to 350F

Fold in 1/4 of your meringue mixture into the TPT "mass" to lighten the mixture. Gently fold in the remaining meringue until the mixture "flows like magma". Transfer to two pastry bags with a plain tip.

A note on how to pipe heart shaped shells: This takes some finesse. I started out with heart shapes drawn on parchment underneath my silpat which helped somewhat. This particular batter was more 'oozy' than the French meringue method I typically use, so it was a bit difficult to pipe them exactly into the shapes I traced. I ended up piping them freehand in a gentle 'V' shape that turned out well.

Allow for shells to dry at room temperature for at least 30 minutes (I almost always wait 1 hour) then bake at 350F for 12-20 minutes (depending on your oven).

In a saucepan, whisk the sugar and flour together. Add the milk and cream and cook, whisking occasionally, until mixture comes to a boil and thickens. (recipe states "about 20 minutes" but my mixture thickened in under 10)

Transfer the mixture to the bowl of stand mixer and beat on high, using the paddle attachment, until cool. Reduce mixer speed to low and add the butter, piece by piece, beating until thoroughly incorporated. Add the vanilla and cinnamon. Increase speed to medium-high and beat until frosting is light and fluffy. If frosting is too soft, chill in the refrigerator and then beat again until proper consistency.

Absolutely gorgeous Jayme...a labour of love! I have a hard time turning out round ones with feet, can't believe you got such pretty & perfect hearts! SPOT ON for Valentines.Thank you for joining us at MacTweets. It's wonderful to have you there!

When I saw them on mac tweets, i just had to come by and tell you how stunning i think these are. They are without a doubt, super impressive. Someone is going to have some awesome valentine treats :DHappy Valentines day daaaaaaaaaahling.*kisses* HH

These are great! I tried to make the shells but making the heart shape is hard. And I couldn't get the RED color. I didn't know how much to put and I kept adding a lot of the red gel coloring. But still pink. But I didn't want to put the whole little bottle in there so I stopped.

Just found these, they are beautiful! What brand/color of gel coloring did you use? I have tried to make red ones before and just kept getting pink, definitely need a different color and would love your recommendations! Thanks!

These looks like the red I'm trying to achieve! They are amazing. I'm having the same problem as DessertsandDesigns. I'm using Wilton Red Red (1/4 tsp) and my macarons came out pink. What brand and how much coloring did you use here? Thank you for sharing this post :)

Wow..... they look so cute.!!! I'm so gunna make this for valentines day net year and give it to my boyfriend.!!! :3 I was curious but how many macarons does the first recipe make(the one that isn't the buttercream but for the macarons)? Hehehe <3

These were great! Thank you so much for sharing the recipe - I especially enjoyed the cinnamon buttercream which was lovely to work with. Can you tell me what you use for the almond flour? I used Bob's Red Mill which I found too gritty despite puting it in the food processor with the confectioner's sugar, and then forcing it through a tamis. Any hints would be appreciated.Thanks Jayme!

About Me

I like to make yummy things. And take pictures of it. I put that stuff here. Enjoy!
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